Suffering of baby's last days recalled

Slain girl's family testifies at convicted care worker's hearing

November 18, 2005|By Hal Dardick, Tribune staff reporter

When severely brain-damaged Isabella Zielinski made her last trip to the hospital,her mother Barbara made a request of her sister-in-law.

"She asked for a rocking chair so Isabella could die in her lap," Terry Tobolski said Thursday during the sentencing hearing of Jennifer DelPrete, a former day-care worker convicted in March of first-degree murder in 14-month-old Isabella's death.

DelPrete, 34, formerly of Hickory Hills, faces between 20 and 60 years in prison when Will County Circuit Court Judge Carla Alessio-Goode sentences her.

Seven of Isabella's family members testified about losing Isabella, who was with her parents, older brother and dozens of other relatives when she died Nov. 9, 2003 in Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.

Her death came less than 11 months after she became unresponsive at a day-care center in Romeoville. At trial, a doctor testified Isabella's death was the result of being violently shaken--shaken baby syndrome--a diagnosis now being questioned by some medical experts.

After Isabella's family, including her parents, took the stand, the first 13 of 41 character witnesses testified on DelPrete's behalf, describing her as a model single mother of two who could calm other people's troubled children when their own mothers could not.

Just as members of Isabella's family cried while the little girl's life and death were recounted, DelPrete began sobbing when longtime friend Andrea Ashmus called DelPrete "my rock" and said she "would trust her with my children's lives to this day."

The rest of DelPrete's witnesses are expected to take the stand Friday and their testimony will be bolstered by more than 60 letters written on her behalf, said defense attorney Chuck Bretz, who asked Alessio-Goode to impose the minimum sentence.

In the first portion of the hearing, Zielinski family members gave an account of how Isabella's life changed on Dec. 27, 2002, when DelPrete called Isabella's father.

"Jennifer stated they are working on (Isabella) in front of the house in the ambulance," Richard Zielinski testified. "After hanging up the phone, I dropped to the floor and began to cry in disbelief."

Doctors later told Zielinski his daughter had suffered severe damage to both sides of her brain that was "a direct result of being abused," he testified.

After several surgeries, Isabella returned to the family's Plainfield home. She had a tracheotomy tube in her throat to breathe and a feeding tube in her stomach.

She could no longer make sounds, family members said, and arched and stiffened her back when picked up. She wasn't expected to advance beyond the development of a 1-month-old baby.

On Nov. 8, 2003, she quit breathing, was rushed to Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora and then airlifted to Central DuPage, where doctors improved Isabella's breathing but determined her brain was no longer active.

"You can't imagine the pain I felt as I held my dead child close to me, not wanting to leave her," testified Barbara Zielinski, who asked Alessio-Goode to punish DelPrete "to the fullest extent of the law for her evil actions."

DelPrete shook her head, as she did several times when Zielinski referred to her daughter's "murder."

Relatives, friends and children she had cared for testified on behalf of DelPrete, saying she dedicated her life to her two children and others'. She was a schoolroom mom, a children's program coordinator at a municipal library and sometimes a mentor to other mothers.

Megan Heligas, 35, an administrative librarian who hired DelPrete to work with children at the Green Hills Public Library in Palos Hills, said DelPrete had "a calming influence, I would say, over the whole department.

"If I had the opportunity, I would let her baby-sit both of my children today," Heligas testified, saying DelPrete "had more patience with my son than I did."

All the praise for DelPrete, who witnesses said never raised her voice or hand to a child, contrasted sharply with the pain of the Zielinski family.

"Today, one of the hardest questions for me to answer is, `How many children do you have?' " Barbara Zielinski said. "Do you want the answer to that? I have three, two boys and a murdered daughter waiting for me in heaven."